Amongst other things, it was to try to secure financial support in America for the work of Sopade, the exile organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (the SPD).
People who later became members of the committee included Friedrich Stampfer, the former editor of Vorwärts, the trade unionist Siegfried Aufhäuser, Erich Rinner and Wilhelm Sollmann.
Amongst these were the dispute over Grzesinski's work in the Council for a Democratic Germany, which saw itself as a gathering point for all the German emigrants, including members of the KPD.
However, the GLD did manage to contribute to saving several hundred endangered Social Democrats from arrest by the German authorities and getting them out of France in 1940.
The GLD also worked on developing plans for the reconstruction of the workers' movement and the introduction of democratic structures in post-Nazi Germany.